


Purple dress and trashcan

by lunaemoth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Romance, Undercover, dlss2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5562754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaemoth/pseuds/lunaemoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Darcy Land Secret Santa. </p><p>A boring fancy party gets much livelier when an Avenger falls down from the ceiling in Darcy's eager arms. Apparently, she can't escape the saviors of the world but she truly doesn't mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purple dress and trashcan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Imogen_Penn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imogen_Penn/gifts).



> NB: I'm french, english isn't my first language and this isn't betaed so you can expect some mistakes. If anything bother you please send me a nice comment with the correction.
> 
> You can find me on lunaemoth.tumblr.com

Being bored tonight was a shame, really. Darcy had gone all out on her makeup, spent an hour on her hair and this long purple dress was a real killer. She had never bother so much with how she looked like since… prom? No, that day her mom had been the one worrying about her appearance. So, nope, that was the first time. Probably because she had been swept in the youtube fad, watching videos about makeup and hair tutorials. She had played princess for the day; tomorrow she’ll go back to her life of employee spending too much time on cat videos and Avengers blog.

 

She adjusted her neckline and pouted at her reflection in the mirror. Hiding in the bathroom when there was a fancy party going on outside wasn’t very brave either. She had been so excited to be invited thanks to her new job as second assistant of the local mayor but her boss and the first assistant had disappeared sometime ago and since then she was… really desperately bored. No, let’s be honest, she had been bored before that but had pretended to be professional enough not to show it. It had been easier to hide when she was ogling the beautiful dresses, the yummy petits fours and the stylish decoration of the mansion.

 

Now her heels were killing her feet and she just wanted to sit down on the ground. Her dress was a loan from her boss though, damaging it was the last thing she needed. So she carefully wiped the bathroom counter and sat on it, slowly swinging her bare feet. She missed Jane so much right now. Oh, she was often bored too when she was her intern but at least she could always find something to do, like making sure Jane was fed and watered and that she didn’t insult people who could kill them all (uh... who was she kidding? that last part wasn’t true, Darcy was rooting for her in those cases, not stopping her… but at least it was entertaining!). “I wanted to visit Asgard too,” she whined out loud with a fierce pout. She should have asked to go with Jane, no matter that she had finally found a well-paid job a few weeks prior. Who care about money when you could visit the royal planet of aliens, right?! Damn her for her impromptu bout of maturity.

 

Maybe she could sneak back in the cloakroom and take her smartphone. Surely the stern housemaid who had insisted that she couldn’t take her bag with her (because no, she hadn’t bought a clutch bag just for tonight and there wasn’t enough room in her cleavage for her smartphone, damn) had better things to do by now, right? Then she could sneak back here and play some games… By Frigga’s holy bosom, she was really pathetic.

 

Suddenly, the ceiling fell on the marble floor with a “bang” and a groan. Darcy squeaked, jumped down, and when the groaning thing moved, she reached for the nearest object, a trashcan, and threw it at the man whose face appeared. The plastic bin bounced on a nest of dusty light brown hair and opened itself, releasing a shower of used paper towels and some women necessities’ wrapping. The intruder groaned once again and looked at what was falling on him with fatalism before looking up at her.

  
Darcy blinked at him and gaped. “Hawkeye?”

The most famous archer in the world (after Katniss Everdeen because, duh, she was prettier) frowned at her and tilted his head. “Do I know you?”

“No, you don’t, but I know you. Thor mentioned you and your bad habit of falling from the ceiling. What the hell, man, this is the ladies room!”

“Is it?” He eyed a pad’s wrapping, frowning. “I suppose it is. Sorry about that, the air ducts were too small afterwards.”

“Well…” Darcy crossed her arms. “I suppose it’s fine. I’m not the one who embarrassed myself by falling like a ton of bricks and being hit by a trashcan.”

“Don’t remind me,” he grumbled as he stood up and brushed himself. “But wait, who are you exactly? Thor don’t have many friends on Earth…”

“Darcy Lewis, Doctor Jane Foster’s intern… I mean, ex-intern. Right now I’m a mayor’s assistant.”

“Ah, yeah, I remember. Okay… Can this stay between us?” He asked, pointing a finger at the trashcan, the ceiling and both of them.

“Sure. I mean, as long as Jane and Thor aren’t on Earth, you’re covered. Afterwards I can’t promise anything: when I’m drunk I just tell them everything,” Darcy admitted with a shrug. “It’s a stars club rule: no secrets can resist alcohol. It makes things awkward sometimes but, eh, I dragged Thor’s ass after tasering him and I’ve seen Erik without his pants, I can handle TMI.”

“... Fair enough.”

“Can I help?”

“What?”

“You’re here on Avengers business, right? Can I help? Pretty please? I’m bored! I thought New Mexico and London were bad but this is worse. I can hack computers and taser anyone you want.” She widened her eyes and joined her hands in prayer. “Just give me something to do before I put too much money that I don’t have in Candy Crush... again.”

He eyed her with concern (probably for her mental health, that was understandable) before taking it in stride and shrugging. “Sure, I could use a hand.”

“Awesome!” Darcy clapped her hands and bounced up and down on her abused feet. “Tell me.”

“You recognized me. Could you recognize other Avengers in civilian gear?”

“Sure! I mean, Tony Stark’s easy, obviously. Jane had a minor obsession on Dr Banner so that’s easy too. Natasha Romanoff is so gorgeous there’s no way I could miss her. Same for Steve Rogers. Are they here?” Oh, that would make her evening!

“One of them should be, at least. They had an invitation with a plus-one. I need you to find them in the ballroom and tell them where I am. I had some… complications… and lost my earpiece,”

“That’s easy! and awesome! I’m on it!” Darcy hastily put her heels back on and walked to the door. On her way, she reached for Clint’s hair and removed a tissue from it. She smiled at him and patted his bare biceps appreciatively. “Nice. Not Thor-nice but very nice anyway.”

“... Thanks?”

“You’re welcome!”

 

Going back to the ballroom with a heroic purpose in mind helped her to walk with the grace of Gods (which wasn’t a given when her feet were shouting in pain). However, finding the Avengers was a little harder than planned because Steve fucking Rogers had a beard. Like, seriously, that was his undercover costume: a beard. And it was damn effective… and hot… oh, so hot. There was a lady with brown hair by his side which totally didn’t look like Natasha Romanoff, even considering her hair might be a wig. At first, Darcy thought it was some other guest trying to flirt with Steve gorgeous Rogers but they didn’t look like they were flirting and they weren’t separating either.

Darcy shrugged and walked to them. “Hi! I’m Darcy Lewis. We’ve friends in common.”

They looked at her with wariness and Steve Rogers raised a cautious but polite eyebrow at her. “We do?”

“Yeah! Well, some of them are out of reach right now but I just met another one, he kinda fall on me and told me I could find you here.”

Steve tilted his head slightly before relaxing. “Oh, you’re Doctor Jane Foster’s intern, right?”

“That’s right.” Did he really know about her or did he cheat? Clint said they were supposed to have earpieces. He totally cheated. Damn, she wished she could have had someone whispering the answers to her during her exams. “It’s nice to meet you, Steve and…” She glanced to the brown-haired lady in a silent question.

“Wanda,” she introduced herself, “I’m one of the newbie.”

“Oh, lucky you.” Were they recruiting? She could apply for the Avengers but… yeah… that was as likely as her applying for the White House.

“You recently met a friends of ours, you said?” Steve asked.

“Oh yeah, in the ladies room… I mean… near the ladies room.”

The two Avengers exchanged a glance before Wanda turned to her. “As it happens, you remind me I need to refresh myself. Would you show me the way?”

“Sure!”

 

Darcy Lewis led the way back to the first floor and its remote bathroom. Clint had cleaned the trashcan mess as well as his hair and he was dressing up. Darcy blinked at him in surprise. He was in Avengers gear a few minutes ago. “Where did you find that tuxedo?”

“I borrowed it.” He replied casually before turning to Wanda to talk business.

Darcy listened to them at first but was distracted by a closed stall. She crouched to look under the door and snickered when she caught sight of bare legs tied together. Some poor sod will have a worse evening than her.

“Darcy?”

“Uh, yeah?” She stood up quickly, brushing the bottom of her dress.

“You wanted to help, right?” Clint asked.

“Sure, yeah.”

“Congratulations, I’m your plus one.”

“You are? Cool. I won the lottery!”

Wanda chuckled behind her long red sleeve and excused herself.

“So, what’s your name, plus one?”

“Clint Stevenson.”

“And what’s the plan Clint?”

“We’re going to mingle for now and I’ll have to leave you sometime later.”

“Okay. It still sounds better than ruining myself in Candy Crush.”

 

He offered her his arm once in the hallway and she mentally patted herself in the back. Way better than phone games.

“You’re Mayor Samson’s assitant, right?”

“Second assistant, yeah. Why?” She looked up to see him tilt his head and pinch his lips. “Oh no. You’re kidding me. He isn’t one of the bad guys, right?”

“Well…”

“Do you know how much I’m paid? Not enough to deal with future unemployment, that’s how much.” Forlorn, she steered them towards the buffet for a glass of alcohol. “I’ve the worst luck,” she mumbled in her champagne. “Oh, well, at least, I got to wear a pretty dress I suppose.”

“It fits you,” Clint noted between two canapés. "Purple is not for everyone but you're rocking it."

“You think?”

The archer did a double take at her honest surprise and nodded. “Yeah, you look great,” he stated simply, like it was obvious, before eating two more canapés at the same time. 

Darcy might have preened a little, just a tiny bit, smoothing her dress and grinning like a loony. Being with Clint was exactly her kind of fun: eating, drinking, talking about pop culture, commenting more or less snidely about the people around them and their weird habits of upper class.

They had to move around for some mysterious Avengers’ activities. Clint alternated between offering her his arm or keeping a hand on the small of her back. Of course she was just his cover but at least she had fun pretending to herself that she was in a spy movie.

 

“Sweetheart, you got to stop putting on airs,” he murmured in her ear when they watched the ground floor from the balcony.

“But it’s fun,” she protested with a pout.

“It’s distracting.”

“Oh. Am I distracting you?” She joked with a false sultry voice.

“You are.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll shut up and be a good little trophy wife,” she granted, waving a hand.

“You talking is not the only distracting part.”

Darcy’s eyebrows went up a notch but Clint had already looked away.

“Sorry, I’ve to go. Time for me to work. I may or may not see you later. In any case, it was my pleasure.” He squeezed her hand one last time before letting her go with a lopsided smile.

“Uh, yeah, same. Break a leg!”

“Maybe several, but hopefully not mine,” he quipped before disappearing in the crowd.

 

Just as quickly as it has left her, boredom came back to crash the party. Darcy looked for her boss but he still was AWOL. Since he was supposed to be a bad guy, maybe he was currently getting his ass kicked by Captain America. Serve him right. He was a misogynist and she was convinced that she only got the job because she had a V-neck during her interview. She still had accepted the position anyway: beggars can be choosers and all that. She won’t cry for him though… just for her paycheck.

She went back to the buffet and wondered when it’ll be socially acceptable for her to ditch the party and still be able to pretend to anyone asking that she had waited for her boss as long as she could.

 

It was way past midnight when she decided she was done and went to the cloakroom.

“Your plus one isn’t leaving with you?” The man checking her ticket asked as he helped her put on her coat.

“Uh…” Crap, obviously the Avengers had made sure that Clint was officially registered as her partner on some database. She had to give an excuse.

“I’m here!” Clint appeared, a little breathless, with his bow tie undone and his hair messy once again. “Sorry, sweetheart, I hurried as much as I could.”

“It’s fine,” she replied without missing a beat (she was getting so good at taking things in stride, it was at least a talent she had gathered from her lengthy internship) “Did you manage to conclude your business?”

“Yeah, just have to tie up some loose ends, but we’re good to go.” He gave a ticket (probably not his, once again, poor sod, was he still naked in the bathroom?) with a smile and put an arm around Darcy’s waist to drop a kiss on her forehead.

As they left the mansion, Darcy caught a glimpse of Steve Rogers nodding to Clint. “Alright, I don’t know what’s going on but you should know my boss bring me here. I was planning to take a cab so…”

“No need,” Clint replied as a sleek black car stopped in front of them in the driveway. He opened the passenger door for her while a red-head stepped off the driver side and threw him the key. “Thanks Nat.”

“Oh, hi,” Darcy mumbled as she recognized the lady. She waved. “You’re really pretty.”

Natasha Romanoff chuckled as she walked away. “She’s cute. Get her home safe, Clint.”

“Will do,” Clint replied as he settled on the driver seat.

“So,” Darcy started once they were driving away from the mansion. “Want to put me in the know?”

“Your boss is definitely dirty and there was a small risk you might be in danger. I’m taking you home and making sure you’re safe for the night. After that…” He glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. “I heard you’re in need of a job. Interested by the Avengers Initiative?”

Darcy tried to hold back a squeal, totally forgetting any mention of danger to her person (it couldn’t be worse than an alien invasion and this time she had a personal Avenger bodyguard anyway!). “Oh my Thor, yes! Since it’s my lucky day, I’m going to push my luck a little: could I get a dinner with you in the package?”

Clint tapped the steering wheel nervously. “I try to avoid dating colleagues.”

“Oookay,” Darcy drawled, squinting as she thought fast. “That’s not a no _and_ I’m not your colleague yet so… do you want to sleep with me tonight?”

Clint sped up and passed a car before answering: “Maybe… once the others confirmed you’re safe,” he clarified, rubbing the back of his neck and staring at the road fixedly.

Darcy grinned widely. “Best day ever.”

And if she jumped in his arms to kiss him as soon as they were inside, well, she might have had a little too much champagne. Sue her.


End file.
